


First Day, Last Day

by JeanGraham



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 20:34:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanGraham/pseuds/JeanGraham
Summary: Illya reflects on his first day at U.N.C.L.E. -- and his last.





	First Day, Last Day

* * *

See all of my fanfic and links to my pro fiction at <http://jeangraham.20m.com.>

FIRST DAY, LAST DAY by Jean Graham, D. Wallace & S. Jordenaur  
  
  
The walls were a tomb.  
  
Strange how he'd never looked at them in quite that way before.  
  
Blue-grey steel. Harsh lights. Unmarked doors.  
  
Twelve years of his life.  
  
He remembered the day he'd first walked these corridors. A  
somewhat younger Alexander Waverly had led him through the gun-  
metal maze into an office-computer center, where a dark-haired man  
had turned to look at them.  
  
"Mr. Solo," Waverly had said. "This is Mr. Kuryakin, the newest  
member of your Section Two. I would suggest you two gentlemen get  
to know one another. I do believe you'll be working rather closely  
together in the near future."  
  
Solo had firmly shaken Kuryakin's hand. "I've been reading your  
file," he said. "Welcome to Section Two."  
  
Waverly, already on his way back out the door, had turned to add an  
afterthought. "Mr. Solo has been with us for two years," he told  
Illya. "I dare say he's familiar enough with our Headquarters  
operations to thoroughly acquaint you with them. Am I correct, Mr.  
Solo?"  
  
"Uh... yes sir." Napoleon Solo seemed temporarily distracted by  
something, but his smile remained after his superior had vanished  
out the door. He pulled a read-out from the computer printer and  
scanned it briefly before he said, "So much for introductions. I'm  
afraid Mr. Waverly's never been much for amenities."  
  
"Nor have I," Illya had admitted, his tone cordial. "Shall we  
begin?"  
  
"Hm? Oh, yes of course. Just let me.."  
  
The squeal of an U.N.C.L.E. communications signal had interrupted  
him. A throaty female voice floated over the loudspeaker when Solo  
tripped the switch. "Napoleon, darling," it cooed. "Section Four  
lets me off at eight, if you're still interested."  
  
Solo, with an embarrassed glance at Kuryakin, had turned down the  
speaker's gain too late. "Uh... hello Marilyn," he said. "Listen,  
I'll have to call you back a little later. I, uh..."  
  
"Oh," the voice said accusingly. "Someone's with you."  
  
Aware of Illya's amused look, Solo answered, "Well, as a matter of  
fact..."

  
"What's her name, Napoleon?"  
  
"Now Marilyn --"  
  
The circuit cut off with an angry click, evoking a wince from Solo.   
He closed the channel from his end. "Sorry," he said.  
  
Illya had nodded. "Don't mention it. I certainly won't." Moving  
to the door then, he'd gestured for his guide to follow. "Shall we  
go, Mr. Solo?"  
  
Grinning, Solo had motioned with his own hand to the door.  
  
"After you, Mr. Kuryakin."  
  
With that light-hearted exchange, his first day with U.N.C.L.E. had  
begun.  
  
Now, on his last one, a confrontation loomed ahead that promised to  
be far less pleasant.  
  
For what might well have been the millionth time, the thick door of  
Waverly's office slid back in front of him. The Section One chief  
looked up at his entrance and frowned, an expression that had  
greeted Illya innumerable times over the years.  
  
"Ah, Mr. Kuryakin," he said. "Come in. Please... sit down."  
  
For the first time in twelve years, Illya hesitated at the  
invitation. "If it's all the same to you--" he began.  
  
Waverly's placating gesture curtailed the refusal. "Please," he  
repeated. Uncharacteristically, his tone was almost pleading, no  
longer an employer addressing a subordinate, but one equal to  
another.  
  
Uncomfortably, Illya took a seat at the large, rotating table --  
the very place from which he had received so many assignments from  
this man over the past dozen years. Strange. It seemed longer...  
  
"I'm sorry," Illya said quietly. "But I'm afraid there's still no  
chance I'll change my mind. My resignation will stand."  
  
"Yes, I'm sure." Waverly took the chair opposite, staring  
contemplatively into the bowl of his unlit pipe. In the long and  
awkward silence that followed, Illya noted that for the first time  
in their lengthy acquaintance, Alexander Waverly appeared to be at  
a loss for words.  
  
"Damnably unpleasant business," the older man said at last, and at  
Illya's puzzled expression, added, "I mean this... Yugoslavian  
affair."  
  
Immediately, Illya's gaze fell to the tabletop.

  
"Even more unpleasant," the head of Section One continued, "when  
death occurs to one with whom you are... well... personally  
involved."  
  
Illya avoided Waverly's eyes, wishing only for this meeting to end  
so that once and for all, he could leave this office, these halls,  
the entire superstructure that was U.N.C.L.E. He'd made a promise  
to himself. Today, when he'd closed Del Floria's tailor shop door  
behind him, he would never open it again.  
  
Alexander Waverly cleared his throat, and with a candor more in  
keeping with his usual self, said flatly, "U.N.C.L.E. did not  
orchestrate that young woman's death, Mr. Kuryakin. Whatever else  
you may believe, I would like you to take my word for that."  
  
More curtly than was necessary, Illya said, "We've been over this  
before. There's nothing more to add."  
  
"I fear I must disagree with you there," Waverly said. "Only  
today, I've learned that a man named Karl Worschak, the head of all  
our Eastern Europe field operations, has been taken into custody by  
our Munich office. It appears he'd been accepting rather large  
sums of money -- from a man known to us as Janus."  
  
Suddenly interested, Illya's gaze snapped up to meet his.  
  
"It seems," Waverly went on, "that Janus was not the only traitor  
in our midst. Worschak knew Janus planned to abandon the two of  
you in Yugoslavia. But he deliberately failed to inform me of that  
fact. Betrayal, you might say, begets betrayal."  
  
At once, Illya grew sullen again. "It doesn't change anything," he  
said.  
  
"I'd rather hoped it would change one thing." Waverly's tone had  
grown suddenly more gentle -- almost paternal. "You'll forgive me,  
Mr. Kuryakin. This is not an easy thing to say. But I had hoped  
you wouldn't leave here without understanding that Worschak's  
treachery prevented my learning about Janus in time to warn you.   
Had I known..."  
  
Abruptly, Illya rose from the chair and moved to the center of the  
triple office windows. Staring-without-seeing at New York's smog-  
laden skyline, he said coldly, "It still doesn't change anything."  
  
Disapointment clouded Waverly's voice. "No," he said. "I suppose  
not. I'd simply hoped I could dissuade you from blaming U.N.C.L.E.  
for what's happened. U.N.C.L.E., and by the association I must  
infer -- myself." Illya's head lifted slightly, but he continued to  
stare out the window as his former superior continued. "I'm more  
aware than anyone that betrayal by one's own is the most painful of  
all, when it occurs. But on my honor, Mr. Kuryakin, it did not  
occur here."  
  
Illya turned slowly to look at him, at a loss for words himself  
now. After Yugoslavia, Janus, the resignation -- after all that  
had happened, he'd never once stopped to think that his rage at  
U.N.C.L.E.'s unfeeling bureaucracy might be taken personally by the  
one man who stood at the organization's head.  
  
He'd been too lost in his own blind fury to see...  
  
He found he couldn't frame the words without turning back to the  
faceless anonymity of the window.  
  
"I never blamed you," he said.  
  
_U.N.C.L.E., yes, but never you,_ he added privately. _Are you so_  
_ much a tool of this cold steel hierarchy that you never see_  
_ yourself apart from it? I think you are. And I don't want to_  
_ become like that. I can't..._  
  
He heard Waverly rise from the table, then the soft scuff of the  
man's shoes on the floor.  
  
"Thank you, Mr. Kuryakin, for that."  
  
After several moments, Illya turned back to find his long-time  
superior extending a hand.  
  
"Good-bye, Mr. Kuryakin."  
  
Illya took the hand. "Good-bye... sir."  
  
The corridors seemed even more confining as he made his way down to  
the ground floor, and the cloak-room entrance to Del Floria's. He  
wondered how the halls had looked to Napoleon Solo three years ago,  
on the day that he'd retired. Probably not at all the same, Illya  
decided. Solo's departure from U.N.C.L.E. had been amicable, his  
decision to leave nothing more than the realization that he'd  
worked in this business for too many years, and very much needed a  
change. In a few years, Illya might have reached the same  
conclusion, but for Yugoslavia, and Janus...  
  
At the security desk, a pretty brunette receptionist took the  
triangular ID badge he handed her, and set it on a large Plexiglas  
rack with several others. Then, nodding, she touched the control  
that opened the passageway into Del Floria's cloak room.  
  
Illya went through, pushing the door back into the wall with a  
single twist of the polished brass coat hook. He thought he heard  
a faint resounding echo at the door's closure, a hollow sound like  
stone hitting stone in an empty chamber. He shook his head.   
Probably only his imagination.  
  
A heavy-set woman with bleached-pink hair turned from an animated  
conversation with Del Floria to stare, perplexed, at the man who'd  
just mysteriously appeared from the tailor's dressing room.  
The bald Del Floria glanced at Illya, nodded, and immediately drew  
the fat lady back into an earnest discussion of how-one-removes-  
coffee-stains-from-crushed-black-velvet.  
  
Crossing the small, well-worn floor space, Illya pulled open the  
shop door, stepped through, and with a familiar jingle of the  
overhead bell, closed it behind him. He walked up the short flight  
of concrete steps then, deliberately merging into the throngs of  
New York City's summer afternoon lunch crowd.  
  
He didn't look back.


End file.
